Okay, so I want to finish our prayer series. It's taking a lot longer than I thought, so I'm going to try to go a little bit faster today. And we left off with, we're at the Amidah.
We finished last time with the Shema. And so now we're at the next major section, which is the Amidah. And this is really the core of the prayer. That's what the prayer is all about.
It's the Amidah. with the Amidah you really fulfill the mitzvah officially of praying and so we'll go back to the Rambam that we've quoted the Rambam before in the Mishnah Torah of how he explains the history of the of the prayers and so he says if you remember Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian king who destroyed the first temple in Jerusalem and exiled the Jews so the Jewish people at that point They were exiled from their lands, so they started mixing, you know, living in the foreign lands in Iran and in Greece and Persia, I should say, in Greece. And different countries.
And they had children born in these foreign lands. But they couldn't speak Hebrew properly anymore. Just like we see today, you know, Jews in America and Europe, they don't necessarily have such good Hebrew anymore. So, and therefore, there was this problem with how to pray properly, how to connect to God.
The divine, holy language of Hebrew was forgotten a little bit. So, that a person couldn't really speak clearly and especially couldn't speak properly in Hebrew. Or because of that, when one of them was praying, when they would try to pray, they wouldn't know how to pray properly, in Hebrew especially. So, they couldn't really praise God properly in the proper B'ilashon HaKodesh.
And so, when Ezra, if you remember, Ezra was one of the great leaders, Ezra Sofer, who helped lead the Jews back to Israel after the end of the Babylonian exile. So, they established what's called the Anshei. They were the Anshei Knesset Hagdola. They established the Great Assembly Knesset Hagdola. And so they instituted a lot of the, they kind of codified a lot of the early aspects of Judaism, like the Tanakh and our prayers and a lot of these things.
So that's what the Rambam says. So they instituted these 18 blessings, the Amidah, which we all know. That's like the standing prayer, right?
Amidah means to stand. So that's the prayer where everybody's quiet, the silent prayer, the standing prayer. And the order.
is shalosh rishonot shebach, so the first three blessings are blessings of praise, and u'shalosh achronot hodaya, and the last three are blessings of gratitude, v'emtziyot, yesh v'hen shaylot, so in the middle ones, all the middle blessings are all the things that we ask for, requests, shaylot kol ha'dvarim, shayen k'mo avot l'chol chavtzei ish, v'ish l'tzachet tzibul, all the things that our community needs, and so on, and kulan kidei shayeyu aruchot b'fi akol, So the sages instituted the Amida so that every person would be able to pray properly and would know what to pray for, would pray for the right things with the right words, with the right formula. And of course, they built into it a lot of deep mystical meaning so that these prayers are really powerful. And we're going to talk about that, the power that is contained within these prayers. So we're going to go through these.
So that's the overall formula. The map of the Amida is. three blessings like the Rambam says three blessings of praise and then 12 blessings of requests but really we have 13 which we're going to get to and then three blessings of gratitude and we're going to just go through each one real quick. The text of the blessings is basically the same in any Siddur there are minor variations like Ashkenazi, Sephardi, different Nusach like there are minor variations but the more or less they're the same and the actual blessing statement Like the final statements are basically identical. So the first one, we all know these, so I'm not going to go through it in too much depth. But the first one is the blessing for Magan Avraham.
We talk about our forefathers, Eloi Yitzhak, Eloi Yaakov, right? That we're praying to the God of our forefathers, Avraham Yitzhak Yaakov. We're connecting to them, to their merit.
And we are just saying how God protected them and guided them and brought them to greatness. And we hope that he will do the same for us as well. and we're praising him as the god who again these are blessings of praise as the god who who led our forefathers.
And then we give other attributes of God that he sustains all life, right? Mechaya Metim, that he can resurrect the dead and Samech Naflim and Rofech Olim and heals the sick and so on and so on. And the second blessing is Mechaya Metim, that God resurrects the dead. We're talking about the afterlife and the eventual resurrection of the dead following. in the end of days.
And the third blessing, the last of the blessings of praise is El Kadosh, that God is holy. That's straightforward. Then we have the actual things that we are requesting.
And so the sages instituted, like what are the key things that we want to ask God for? And the first one, of course, we want God to give us knowledge. We want to be wise. We want to be smart. We want to understand the world that God created.
And we want to understand God. So the first thing that we ask God, the first request is, Chonan Adad, give us knowledge. And the second one, we ask for the opportunity to repent, essentially.
We say, Baruch HaTashem, Arot Tev Et Shuvah, that God wants us to repent and gives us the opportunity to repent and cleanse ourselves and draw closer to Him. So we want to be able to draw closer to God. And then following with that, Hanun HaMarbel Islach. that God forgives us and hope that God will be forgiving.
And then we have Goel Yisrael, that God will redeem us. God saves us, redeems us throughout history, and ultimately will save us with the great Geula at the very end, the final redemption. And then Rophech Oleh Amo Yisrael, that God heals us.
We ask God to heal us. And then Mevarech Hashanim, which... talks about God's blessing the years, meaning it's a blessing for abundance.
We're asking God for abundance in our produce and food and all these things of the land. And Mikabetz Nitchayamo Yisrael, which is to gather the exiles. So we know Jewish people are spread all over the world, and ultimately we're going to return to the promised land we already have.
Not fully, but on the way. So we're partway through that process of reclaiming our ancient homeland. So Mikabetz Nitchayamo Yisrael.
And then we have Melech Oeb Tz'takau Mishpat, that God loves justice, righteousness. So we want to be righteous and just. Pray for that, request that.
And then here we have that 19th blessing. So even though we say it's the Shemana Yisra, that the Amidah is 18 blessings, really there are 19 blessings. So there's a 19th blessing that was added, which is L'minim V'Lamal Shinim.
L'minim are sectarians, people who sect. create sects of divisions within the Jewish people and mal shinim are people who are informers of traitors basically is another name for it people who betray the Jewish people and uh and all these other people that that specifically do ungodly things and all the basically all the enemies of the Jewish people and all the enemies of God so we ask God to break all the enemies of Israel all the enemies of God, or machnia zedim in other versions of the text, to subdue all the sectarians and people who create unnecessary division and trouble for the Jewish people. So why was this blessing added? When was it added? And we'll go back to the Rambam.
The Rambam says, Be'emei Rabban Gamliel, a rabu a picosin be'israel. So at the end of the Second Temple period, there were unfortunately many a picosin, various heretical movements, various divisions within the Jewish people, different sects were forming. And so, so people were, they were, I don't know what's the word, maybe missionizing Jews to go, to move away from God, to move away from the true faith. And so, and the Sanhedrin at that time, arose, So they wrote this to say, let's, you know, we have to write, put this into our prayers so that God will stop with this.
God will help us defeat all these divisions and all this. Unfortunately, these divisions within the Jewish people are our own kind of enemies from within that are splitting us apart. And the Talmud Yerushalmi says, Rabbi Yochanan said, they didn't discover Israel.
that the Jewish people were not exiled, meaning the Second Temple was not destroyed, and we did not enter this exile, ad shanaasu until there were 24 kitot shel minim, that there were 24 different sects of Jews in Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple period. At that point, it was just kind of God had enough of all the divisions. We know of all the different sects that existed at the time, the Polshim, Pharisees, and Zuzukim, and Sadducees, and the Zealots, Canaim, and all kinds of other divisions, Sikarikim, and Isiim, the Essenes.
There were so many divisions. And of course, the Christians, that was really the main one from the Minim. So all these different sects that emerged in Jerusalem at that time.
And we know that the temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, because of unnecessary division and hatred and dispute among the Jewish people. So that's what we need to end. We know that the redemption will come when we have the opposite, avat chinam, baseless love instead of baseless hatred.
So that's the 19th blessing. So we have really 19 blessings, 13 blessings of request. So that's the ninth one.
There is to get rid of the enemies of Israel. from within and from without. And then, for the righteous of Israel, that the righteous people can rely on God, that we trust in God, and we have this relationship with God. So it's a blessing for the righteous, for all of Israel to become righteous, and for God to deal righteously with us, and that we can rely upon God.
And then, the next blessing is B'nai Yerushalayim, that God will rebuild Jerusalem. which again we're living through already. This is something that we've prayed for for centuries and now we see it before our eyes that Jerusalem is being rebuilt. Of course it's not done until the temple is rebuilt.
The ultimate goal is to rebuild the temple. That's when Jerusalem will truly be rebuilt. And then, that Mashiach will come, the true Mashiach will come. There have been many pretenders over the centuries, false messiahs, failed messiahs, so we hope that finally the the real seed of salvation, the real, that's what Motsmiach literally means, that the seed will finally flourish and that the real Yeshua, the real salvation will come. No Messiah has come, that's obvious.
Any movement that tries to claim that the Messiah has come, and there have been many, it cannot be because simply the prophecies that were recorded in Tanakh have not come about, that's obvious. So there's still no world peace. We don't see what Isaiah said.
Isaiah, the nations will beat their swords into plowshares. There will be no more war. The world is still full of war and suffering. So of course, no Messiah has come.
So that's the blessing for Mashiach, that we hope that Mashiach will come. And finally, it's a general blessing of Shomer Tfilah, that God hears our blessings. So we ask that he will accept, sorry, that God hears our prayers. And so we ask God to accept all of our prayers.
And within Shema et Filah, usually like in the Siddur, it'll say that you can insert somewhere within that paragraph. You can insert other requests, individual requests and other requests for Parnassah and health and things like that. So that's the place where you can, one of the places where you can add additional individual personalized custom requests for yourself. and for others. And then we have the three blessings of gratitude.
So that's how we end, right? So, and then we say that we're grateful, and that God's name is great, and it is good to thank God. Again, ultimately, the point is that we're thanking God. And I missed the slide. which is the sim shalom at the end.
Okay. So anyway, that's the, those were the 19 blessings. So the last blessing, of course, is we ask God to give us peace as well. And what is, so now let's actually go into some of the meaning here. What is the point?
Why are there 18 specifically or 19? What, what are these things correspond to? Why were they instituted this way?
So the Gemara says in Masechet Rechot, Amar Rabbi Hillel, So that's the person who taught this. We say the famous psalm, that's one of the te'elim, so psalm number 29. And over there, God's name is mentioned 18 times. So God's name is mentioned 18 times.
So corresponding to that psalm, the 18 times that God is mentioned there, they instituted 18 blessings. And Rav Yosef says, So there's 18 times the God's name is mentioned in the Shema. So another reason corresponding to the 18 times that God's mentioned in Shema. So a person has 18 vertebrae that protrude.
So we talked about before how you have a total of 26 vertebral bones, 26 corresponding to God's name, has a numerical value of 26. But when you actually bend your spine, you can only really feel 18. You can't really feel most of the neck bones and the lower back bones. So when you bow, and it's one of the reasons why we bow, is that you can only really, you can try it, try to like feel your bones that protrude out of your back. There's 18 that protrude.
So corresponding to those 18 bones that stick out from a person's back. So the Amida is like the backbone of the prayer. That's one of the meanings here.
And that's one of the reasons why we bow. So. That's what it continues to say. Amitpalel tzarech sheikhra ad sheit pakku kol chuliot shebashidra. So a person should bow when they pray so that all of the vertebrae, these 18 vertebrae protrude from their back while they're bowing.
Because if you're standing straight, they don't protrude. If you bow, they do. And we do bow four times, five times. Four or five times once at the end.
Four times in the Amidah and once at the end. There's places to bow. and that's one of the reasons why we bow. And the Zohar adds, So the Zohar adds that a person who bows at the Amidah and bows and stands upright afterwards will merit to also stand upright during the resurrection of the dead. So there's like a little Sula over there to bow.
That's one of the reasons why we bow. Now that's all for 18. That's nice. So we're saying that God's name is mentioned 18 times in the psalm.
God's name is mentioned 18 times in Shema. There's 18 vertebrae, but we said we have 19 blessings, right? So what does the 19th blessing correspond to?
So the Gemara continues and asks, But that's 18, right? But we have 19. So what does the 19th blessing correspond to? So that's, is that 19th blessing.
And we know all that. And what specifically does it correspond to in these, based on these three things. So in Psalm 29, it says God's name 18 times.
And then one time it also says, El means God. It's one of the names of God too. So the 19th blessing corresponds to the one time.
that in that psalm the name El appears. And according to Rabbi Yosef, keneged echad shebekriyat sh'ma. So when you say sh'ma, there's 18 times that God's name is mentioned and the word echad, one, that relates, that also refers to God, God being one.
And l'rabbi tanchum, according to the opinion of Rabbi Tanchum, and Rabbi Yusuf ben Levi, keneged chulea ketana shebeshidra. So the 19th blessing corresponds to the 19th point on the vertebrae. So all of this has a lot more depth that there's really deep meditation here to understand.
When you think about who the Birkat Aminim was primarily for, primarily for people who don't understand the unity of God, that created sects of Judaism and other religions that branched off from Judaism, that split God into various other manifestations. trinity or whatever so that don't understand the unity of god so that's why the specifically that that blessing of bilkat aminim corresponds to echad right that god is one corresponds to el that god is the one power so that people don't think like the minim that there are multiple facets different gods different beings gods in different places that something could be separate from god to meditate on the fact that God is totally one, inseparably one. And what is that 19th uh the 19th julia, the 19th bone?
According to most opinions it's referring to the tailbone. So you can feel the 18 vertebrae protrude from your back, but you can also feel your tailbone at the back. So that's also if you think about what that means. corresponding to Beokataminim and to the enemies of Israel, and why that would relate, parallel, correspond specifically to the tailbone and its location in the body.
And something really more amazing, we know how the Amida, we said how it's really very deeply encoded and everything is, we talked about before about how Judaism, the Torah is so mathematically precise. So the Bala Turim comments, if anybody likes Gematria as a numerology, you have to read the commentary of the Bala Turim because it's all full of Gematria. And he points out the mathematical unity of the Torah.
It's a really wonderful commentary. So he says, It says 18 times in the Torah, So the Torah says 18 times this phrase, that God commanded Moses. So it says 18 times this phrase, that God commanded Moses. that God commanded Moses.
So kenagdam, corresponding to them, tiknu yud chet brachot. So another reason why the instituted 18 blessings, the original in Sheik Neset HaGadolah, is corresponding to the 18 times that it says God commanded Moses in the Torah. Ve'echad, ka'asher tziva Hashem kenesu.
And one time it says in the Torah, ka'asher tziva Hashem kenesu, like God commanded they did, tiknu kenagdo birkat ha'minim. So the 19th blessing corresponds to that statement. And in these 19 statements in the Torah, יש בהם כופיות גימל, 113 תבות, words, וכן בסופי הברכות, כמו ברוך את ה'עגן אברהם, ברוך את ה'אחי מתים, in the actual blessings of the Amidah, כופיות גימל תבות.
It's something really amazing, that in these 19 verses in the Torah, these 19 places where God says he commanded Moshe and the people, there are 113 words. And in the... 19 blessings of the Amidah, there's also a total of 113 words. Okay, so 113, 113. And on top of that, Kufi Utgim El Pa'amim, another 113 times, Lev Bechumash. So the word Lev, heart, appears 113 times in the Chumash, in the Torah.
Shezikhin Kavanat Alev. Of course, we know that we started at the beginning by saying... that prayer in the Torah is called abodat halev, serving God with your heart. And we have to pray with kavanat halev, with kavana, with real intention, with our whole heart, you know, pray with heart. And so the word heart appears in the Torah 113 times.
The number of words that make up the phrases that God commanded Moshe in Israel appears, has 113 words. The Amidah has 113 words in 19 verses. The Torah has 19 verses that say God commanded us or God commanded Moses.
and we did as God commanded. So it all just comes together quite beautifully, the number of verses and words in the Torah and in our prayers. Now, why take three steps forward and backward?
A mitpalel tzayik shey yafsiyah shalosh psiyot leachora, v'acharkach yitayin shalom. So it says in the Gemara that a person, when they finish praying, needs to take three steps back and then say shalom, like we do, osa shalom bimomag. V'im lo asa ken, ra'u ilo shaloy itpalel. If a person doesn't do this, it's better that they didn't pray at all. And Rashi explains why over there.
He says, So I just quoted a little bit of it. But the idea is that when we pray, we know when we're praying the Amidah, it's like the Shekhinah is before us, right? The godly presence is right before you.
That's why you're not supposed to walk in front of a person who is praying the Amidah. Like fork you, ideally. you know, roughly like eight feet in front of a person, you shouldn't walk in front of them, because it's like the Shekhinah is standing, is there, the divine presence is all in front of, is standing in front of a person who is praying.
And so because the Shekhinah is there, and it's like you're talking directly to God, like a king, like God is the king, and it's like you are speaking to God. And so the proper way to take leave of a king, God. is of course not just to like turn your back and go, it's to bow and take three steps back facing the king, facing God, bow, take three steps back and then say Ossah Shalom, like as if you were saying farewell to God. So you finish the prayer in that kind of respectful way.
So that's the basic reason of the taking the three steps back at the end, but then there's a much deeper mystical reason here because we also take three steps. forward and back at the back and forward at the beginning right before we start we take three steps take three steps back so that we can take three steps forward so we have space to take three steps forward so why do we take three steps forward at the beginning and then at the end we take three steps back like to come back to our spot so we take three steps forward it says in the midrash that it says in the torah that moses approached the Arfel, the thick darkness when he went up to Mount Sinai. And the Midrash says that there were three divisions, three, I guess, divisions or three steps for him to approach God. Because the Torah says, That's the phrasing of the Torah, is it says that Moshe first approached the Choshech, then the Anan and then the Arfel.
so hoshekh mi b'chutz, anan ni bifnim, arafel lifnei lifnim, okay, so Moses, when he went to Mount Sinai to see God, he took like three steps, he went through three divisions, or three separations, or three kind of barriers, so the first barrier is called hoshekh, darkness, and then cloud, and arafel, like a dark thick cloud, he went through three stages to get to God, so when we also approach God, it's like we are taking three steps towards God. ascending three levels towards god and the bet yosef uh gives a very long explanation he brings all the midrashim to explain all the different reasons why we do this so if you want to see all the reasons you can look it up over there or haim 123 so he says so just like moses went took three steps, went through these three barriers to get to God, we do the same, and then we take three steps back. That's also, we said that when you're praying, the Shekhinah is in front of you, and so when you're done praying, you're in a holy place, and then you respectfully recede, like step back from that holy place. And another reason is that we know that, like we said last time, that the prayers were instituted corresponding to the sacrifices in the temple.
And we said how, you know, even the bima in the synagogue is like the altar. When you're praying, it's like you're bringing sacrifices on the altar. And when the koan, when the priest would go to the altar, he would say, And it was always, And it was always, he would go up through the right side he would come from the right and then he would leave from the left when he would go up the ramp so between the ramp to the altar and the actual place where they brought sacrifices there were three steps there were three stone steps so there was a ramp and then there was like three stone steps uh more like a ladder and he would ascend these three steps and then descend by those three steps, Gimel Psiyot. Okay so we do like that in the same way as if we are like we said in the previous class that when we pray it's like we're bringing a sacrifice and so in the same way that the koen would go up the ramp and then take three steps up on these stone steps and then bring the sacrifice and then come back again go backwards three steps down so we do the same thing when we pray.
and we also when we say OSA Shalom we bend we bow left and right because of the way that the Kohanim would also ascend going up the right and down the left of the Mizbech at least that's one one version of it one explanation now on a deeper mystical level why do we take three steps forward and backwards like kind of going deeper into that Midrash what are these like three barriers really talking about so on a Qabbalistic level we're actually ascending up the universes. If you remember, we talked about how there are four universes, olamot. We live in the lowest.
I mean, they're all superimposed upon each other. But what we see around us is olama asiyah, the world of action, the world all around us, the physical world. Above us is olama yitzirah, and then briyah, and then atzilut, which is just like God's pure godliness.
And they're all superimposed upon each other. They're all here. It's just that physically we only see Olam HaAsiyah. And then Yetzirah is like where you'd be able to see angels and things like that. And Briya is like, we talked about the very code of the universe.
And the Tzilut is just pure divine emanations, pure godliness. And when we're praying the Amidah, it's like we are reaching the level of Atzilut. That's the idea. So we're taking three steps.
We're down here in the lower world, in Olam HaAsiyah. And we want to go up to Atzilut. We want to be just basking in God's light.
So we take three steps forward at the beginning to ascend from Asiyah to Yetzirah, one step. Yetzirah to Bria, second step. Bria to Atzilut, third step. So when you're at that point where you're at the Amidah, you're in Olam HaAtzilut. And that's why it's...
it's good to pray ideally either with your eyes closed if you know the prayers by heart or if if not then you should just read from the siddur because you want to be like totally in the prayer totally within the feel like you're in god's presence you're in ulama like you're just basking in god's light you're totally one with god that's why also some some authorities say you shouldn't move i know it's also it's helpful to maybe sway or some people rock back and forth that could help with concentration. Some people say you shouldn't do that. You should just be as still as possible and just be totally kind of one with God mentally, emotionally, spiritually. So we're going up to Olam HaTzilut. That's why we're taking three steps forward.
And at the end, we come back down, down to earth, take three steps back. And actually I referenced this earlier and I said, we'd come back to it. So now we're back to this.
The whole prayer service we said before is basically very, the whole thing's mystical. The whole thing is based on Kabbalah. And the whole service, the way it's structured, the whole shacharit is structured based on these olamot. So we have olam ha-asiyah at the start of our prayers, when we do birkot ha-shachar and korbanot, that corresponds to olam ha-asiyah. And then we get to psuket zimra, that corresponds to olam ha-yatsira.
That helps us ascend through that world. And then when we get to the shema, and to the blessings of the shema before and after, that's olam ha-briya. and then the whole Amidah corresponds to the Ulama Tzilut.
So the whole prayer service is structured actually around these four worlds and ascending through these four worlds to the highest possible mystical level. And maybe you noticed that between each of these sections is when we would say a Kaddish, because the Kaddish is the transition from one world to the next world, except for between Shema and the Amidah. which the Arizal explains why there's no Kaddish there. But the Kaddish serves as a transition from one universe to the next.
And so in Shara Kavanot, which is the teachings of the Arizal, he explains this. It says, min ha-adhalat ha-tefilah, at baruch sha'amar. So until the official start of Sukkot Zimra, from the beginning of the prayers, u be'olam ma'asiyah, u misham ad yotzer or, until the blessings of the Shema and the Shema.
So like we just said, the result brings that directly. And then you have to come back down. So the remaining prayer service means So again, we come back down. Depending on what day it is, if you do Tachanun or not, we say Asher again.
That corresponds to So we say, that whole thing. And Kaddosh K'Yashem. So we started the prayers.
We started in Asiyah, went up to Yetzirah, Bria, Atsilut, that's the peak of our prayer, the Amidah. And then we start coming back down, back to Bria, Yetzirah, Asiyah, come back down to earth. And so we have a Kaddish between each universe, to transition between each universe. And that's also why the Kaddish, we say mourners say Kaddish.
Originally, Kaddish was not a mourner's prayer. The mourner's Kaddish is something that came later. Originally, Kaddish is its own thing, separate from praying for the dead. But the reason that we say Kaddish also for the deceased is because Kaddish helps us to elevate our souls from one universe to the next.
So a person who's passed away, we want to help elevate their soul up to the highest heavens. So we say Kaddish. That's the connection there. Have you ever wondered why do we say Kaddish for the dead, but also Kaddish between the prayers? The power of Kaddish is to elevate souls up through higher and higher worlds.
There's a famous story about the Kaddish. It appears in many different places in many midrashim. This is one version of it.
Maaseh b'Rabbi Akiva. So Rabbi Akiva, he was walking by a cemetery. He saw like a naked person who was entirely black, like covered in like ash and coal dust.
He had like thorns on his head. And Rabbi Akiva said, what's like, what's going on? He ran to him.
He ran to him like a horse, like wanting to help him. And he says, what's going on? And the person.
how can I help you? What's going on with you? And the person says that he is met, that I'm actually dead.
Like, you think I'm alive? Rabbi Akiva thought, he thought, he thought that this is a living person. But when he came to that person, the person says, no, I'm actually dead.
So Rabbi Akiva saw a dead soul and the dead soul told him, and every day his punishment is to endlessly chop wood. That's his Gehenom. And Amar Lo said, So Rabbi Akiva asked him, what was your job?
Like, what did you do in your life when you were alive? He said, I was a tax collector. And I would treat rich people favorably.
And treat poor people very unfavorably to the point where they would die. So, of course, he was a great sinner. And he has this horrible punishment in his afterlife. And Rabbi Akiva asks him, Did you hear anything in heaven when you were being judged? Did you hear anything that I could do to help you, that something that might help you, that might relieve you of this endless suffering?
And he told them, so he heard that if his son would pray in a kahal in a congregation and say and he would say kadish and the congregation would say like we do then his suffering would be over because that's a very famous story this is one of the key foundations of saying kadish for the dead that and then the story continues it's a long story i didn't quote the whole thing that rabbi akiva went to town found this person's son, and the son was completely ignorant. And Rabbi Akiva taught him, starting with the alphabet, taught him the ABCs, taught him how to pray, brought him to the Bet Knesset, and allowed him to do this, to say Kaddish. And the congregation said, Yeheshmeh, Rabban, and the person was finally freed from their suffering. So that's from Mazor B'tri, which is written by a student of Rashi.
So that's one version of this story. It appears in many places, but that's like the power of Kaddish to save the souls of the dead from all kinds of judgment in the afterlife. And there's also huge power to answering in the Kaddish, like we saw now, it's saying, and the Gemara says that as well. So it's not just good for the deceased, but for... the living as well, that every person who answers in the Kaddish, Amen, Yeheishmei Rabah, Korin, so they basically rip all of the gzardino, all the negative decrees that are meant to come upon that person will be ripped up in heaven.
So it has huge power to say this with real kavana, like most people do in the synagogue. And then there's something really interesting here. Also the Mahzor Vitri says this, and it's in many other places. So the Kaddish is specifically in Aramaic.
And the question is, why is Kaddish in Aramaic? All of our prayers, almost all of our prayers are in Hebrew, in Lashon HaKadosh, in the Holy Tongue. So why is Kaddish specifically in Aramaic? So that the angels won't understand it.
Angels don't understand Aramaic. The angels specifically speak Hebrew. and not Aramaic. And So the angels wouldn't want to take that prayer. If they understood what we were saying in Hebrew, then they would try to like stop it from going up, from ascending up to God.
So specifically written in Aramaic, which is what angels don't understand, this language. And we have to clarify that a little bit. Why don't angels understand Aramaic and the difference between Hebrew and Aramaic? So why do we have some things in Hebrew?
the Tanakh, Mishnah, but then the Talmud was written in Aramaic, the Zohar is written in Aramaic, why couldn't they just write them in Hebrew? What was the idea, the deeper meaning behind writing the Gemara and Zohar in Aramaic? And why do we have to do Shnayim Mikra, you know, this whole idea of Shnayim Mikra v'targum echad, that it's customary or it's alachically necessary to read the Torah Parsha twice in Hebrew and once in Aramaic?
What's... what is the idea behind that? I'm just looking at a question here. So why would the angels not want a soul to ascend to God?
It's a good question because God created this universe with two sides, kind of. There's a certain balance. So he created angels whose job is to do good things, angels whose job is to do...
seemingly bad things to maintain the balance. Some angels bring prayers up, others try to like stop a person from praying. Some angels try to help a person do mitzvot, others pull in the other direction to maintain the balance of free will.
And there's a ancient, one of the ancient Kabbalistic texts is Sefer Eichalot, and it talks about how, talks about Rabbi Ishmael and how his ascent to heaven, and the Akivas also. the descriptions of their ascent to heaven and over there they see how the angels get their instructions and have all kinds of decrees to fulfill good and bad in that particular case they were bad decrees and Rabbi Ishmael learns a secret from the angel that when Kaddish is being said that those decrees don't come out so similar to what we said what the Gemara says that when you say Kaddish with Kavanah, like those that room of bad decrees is sealed away and that angel is unable to fulfill its job. So it's in the interest of that angel whose job is again to maintain the balance. So there's like this kind of cosmic game, spiritual game in the universe and so they would want to prevent Kaddish from being said because that prevents them from doing their job. And I'm going to explain that a little bit more now because it relates to this idea of Hebrew and Aramaic.
Because Hebrew and Aramaic are both, they're written with the exact same letters. They look the same. There's some overlap between them.
Hebrew, of course, is the language of creation. It's considered particularly a holy tongue. So what does that make Aramaic?
Why do we have Aramaic things? And so the Arizal explains. So the angels speak Lashon HaKodesh, specifically they speak Hebrew. Shubchinat panim ach haklipot, but all the klipot, all the husks, all the, let's say, evil forces, or angels, maybe demons, maybe is a better way to say it, but I don't like the word demons, because it conjures all kinds of images that are not necessarily accurate. But the negative forces in creation, ne'achazim be'achoreim, ve'em mevinim be'lashon targum.
So the... Evil forces in nature speak Aramaic. The angels, the holy angels, the positive angels speak Hebrew. And that's the difference.
So Aramaic is the language of the Sitra Acha, actually. It's the language of the evil side. It's the language of Babylon, right? It's the language of the enemy of Israel.
And Hebrew is the holy part of it. Hebrew is like the faith. It's the same letters. So Hebrew is the holy part of it.
And Aramaic is almost like from the other side. from the backside. That's what the Arizal is saying.
And so, why would we say Kaddish in Aramaic? Because when we say, when we say, when we use their own language to praise God, because the whole Kaddish is praising God. If you read the text of the Kaddish, it's just praising God. That's all it is.
And when we praise God so amazingly, so powerfully, in their language, then they are satisfied. they are subdued by using their own life it's like using their own language against them right they are just they can't hear it their ears explode uh so to speak when their own language is being used for holy matters to praise god so then and that explains why we have uh why torah study is part in hebrew and part in aramaic so tanakh and the mishnah is in hebrew but when you learn gemara and zor it's in aramaic because it's two ways of repairing the world. When you learn Tanakh and Mishnah, you learn it in Hebrew, in the holy language.
You're bringing light to the world. You're empowering the good angels. When you're learning Gemara and Zohar, You are using Aramaic to destroy the Sitra Acha, to subdue those evil forces.
You're using their own language against them and they cannot stand it, so they are repelled by it. So it's two ways to defeat evil. You can defeat evil by bringing in light, by bringing in positivity, goodness, and you can also confront evil head-on and destroy it. You can bring in more light or you can fight the darkness.
Hebrew is bringing in light. Aramaic is fighting darkness. That's the idea here. And so that's why we have learning.
And that's why we have Shnai Mikra as well. That part of it is bringing in light. The other part is dispelling darkness, empowering angels, defeating the demons. That all that's the idea.
That's how we have both Hebrew and Aramaic. That's the difference between them. They're like two opposite sides of one source. Very deep idea here.
The difference between Hebrew. an Aramaic. So that's Kaddish. And then similar to Kaddish is the Kedushah, where in, there's a few ways to do this.
Usually we do this in the repetition of the, one way is in the repetition of the Amidah, right? When we all say Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, Hashem Tzvaot, Baruch Hashem, Kevod Mechod, right? That whole thing.
And everybody kind of lifts their feet a little bit or their, their heels. And also there's a sitting Kedushah that we do also later. seated and something similar to that before the Shema. So the idea of this is to basically mimic the angels.
If you remember like that text, the Kaddosh, Kaddosh, Kaddosh, and the text of it mostly comes from the book of Yehezkel, Ezekiel, who saw that had that amazing vision of the divine chariot, the angels came to him. And that text is actually from that he was lifted up literally that's what it means he felt like a wind lifted him up to the divine chariot and he heard a great noise and he heard the angels praise god and the angels were saying and so we resemble the angels and we do the same thing like the angels do based on ezekiel's vision also isaiah's vision has a lot of similar words daniel also A number of prophets saw the divine chariot and described it in similar words. And the Zohar adds something really amazing. When the Jewish people assemble, gather in synagogues, and we sing all of our songs of praise to God. Our prayers, our songs, so all these are prayers and praises of God.
At the same time, what happens is, So the heavenly angels, three camps of angels also come and join us. So to join us, to be hada in unison with us, and they pray with us. So when they, we know that they say, We know the angels do Kedusha, like we read in the Tanakh.
The secret here is, when we come to the Bet Knesset, and we pray and we do the Kedusha, the angels descend and do it with us. So when you're doing the Kedusha, you can visualize or you can imagine that there's angels on either side of you doing it with you. So these holy angels, they join with every Kedusha that Israel does, that Israel and the world below. That when we sanctify God, the angels come to sanctify God with us.
That's the idea. So the angels are praying along with us. It's not just that we're mimicking the angels, but we're actually praising God in unison together with the angels. That's the power of Kedusha. And finally, we have Alenu.
I'm skipping certain parts, of course, that we mentioned before. Asher, we talked about there's other parts of the prayers. I just want to hit the key.
parts the final prayer is alaynu and this is really like a concluding summary for all the prayers for the whole prayer service and it's a summary also of our mission as the jewish people of why we're here so in the morning especially i mean we say this at the end of every prayer service the idea is that when you leave the bet knesset or when you wherever it is that you're praying and you go out into the world to remind you of where you're going and what you're supposed to be doing right let the canola why are we here we are here to rectify this world you to put it in God's image. Letaken Olam, that's what it means. Letaken Olam be malchut shaday, to make this world more godly. Tikkun Olam doesn't... necessarily what people think it means.
It means to make the world a more godly place. And our job is, of course, to remove idol, to get rid of idolatry and false beliefs, and to bring the world closer to God. That's the idea. So Alayno really describes our mission, and it has a bit of everything. There's praise of God who created the world, right?
It's really a beautiful thing. It's a summary of everything. It's kind of like a summary of most Jewish beliefs, almost like all the principles of faith and our mission in this world to rectify the world, to draw closer to God.
And ultimately, we finish with the vision of the future that a day will come when we will merit the final redemption. And the whole world will be one. All the people will unite under one God.
God will have one name. God will be one. So that's the idea. So we end on a very positive note of a vision of a future peaceful world. And you may have noticed that the two paragraphs of Alaynu, they both start with an ayin and end with a dalid.
So Alaynu, od, al, echad. So the idea is that each paragraph spells ed. which means a witness and you know in Jewish law you need for a proper trial you need to have two kosher witnesses and so we have it's like we finish the prayers with like two witnesses it's like Alayna LeShebech is almost like our two witnesses for our prayers to make sure that this is a good prayer and is going to be accepted up in heaven as if it was like in an earthly court where you need two witnesses for the testimony to be valid so same thing here you So Elenu is like a good conclusion to our prayers that we hope it will be accepted in heaven. So that's that. And then I want to add this little bit.
That was the prayers. We covered pretty much all the major prayers. We didn't go through every single psalm and every single verse because that would take weeks and weeks.
But we hit all the major ones. And I just want to finish with how can we actually make our prayers more successful? So something that.
everybody wants to know and we all want to be kind of good at prayer and make sure that when we pray that God will answer our prayers and of course God answers all prayers it's just that often his answer is no and that's why we don't really get necessarily what we want but God always answers our prayers. How do we get more yeses from God? How do we get make our prayers successful? So one is to pray very simple idea and we all know this to pray with Kavanaugh.
to pray with real intention meaning and not to rush through it so so there's three things that give a person longevity three things that if you don't rush through them your life will be better so good advice first is a marik so a person who makes his prayers long So you don't want to rush through prayers. Ma'arich betfilato. And also, ma'arich al shulchano.
Not to eat too fast. Don't rush through your food. We know the old advice that we all got when we were kids.
Chew your food. Chew slowly. Don't rush through eating. Don't want to rush when you're eating. And ma'arich bebet hakiseh.
Ma'arich bebet hakiseh might be a little funny, but don't rush when you go to the bathroom. Okay, so take your time. Make sure that those three things. are a good thing for longevity. Make sure you don't rush through your prayers.
Don't rush through your meal and don't rush when you go to the bathroom. Make sure you get the job done properly in all three of these things. And in Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Shimon says, Be very careful with Shema specifically.
And in prayer, Don't make your prayer fixed. Don't pray by rote. Don't pray, you know, this is very common today.
where people just kind of go through it and just mumble through the prayers and you kind of know it by heart or don't do it like that. Really pray, like beseech God. Really pray with full emotion. You know, pour out your heart to God. It's literally pouring out your heart.
So make your prayer meaningful. Slow it down. Quality over quantity. Ultimately, prayer should be about.
like you should look at it like that it's not necessarily about the quantity it's the quality of the prayers and another big piece of advice big secret is to put others first So we learn this from the Torah where Abraham prays for Avimelech. And as soon as he prays for Avimelech, Abraham, and then the next story there is that Sarah gets pregnant. So as soon as he prayed for Avimelech and his household for their wombs, for the women to be able to have children, his own wife got pregnant. And he had a child. And Rashi says over there, If a person prays for his fellow, And you also need that same thing that you're praying for your fellow to have.
So God will answer you, will give you that first. So Abraham and Sarah wanted a child. When Abraham prayed for Abimelech, for his household, for the children to be born, God answered him.
And Abraham also, God answered both of them. So God and Abraham and Sarah also had children. So when you pray for somebody else, you put others'needs first. That also helps you. So don't just pray, not to pray selfishly, not just to think about our own needs and pray for what we need, but pray also for what other people, what do other people need?
Focus on the needs of others. And the Zohar says, come and see, there's three times a day that God judges the world. I mean, we know God judges the world on Rosh Hashanah, but more specifically, there's judgment taking place.
three times a day and the Zohar says during the three prayer times corresponding to the three prayers there's three times that there's judgment in heaven and the Gemara tells us that when the judgment happens God is very merciful and kind. So a person who is being judged and there's 999 accusers against him but even one defender, one defense, God goes with the defense. God is very merciful in heaven, but it depends on the person. So God is only merciful. God judges us the way we judge others.
That's the secret. You've probably heard this before. God judges us the way we judge others.
So one other thing about another secret to prayer is to, in general, to judge others favorably, and then God will judge you favorably and be more open. more receptive to your prayers. And we know we say, that's the verse, you should love your fellow as yourself. And the verse ends by saying, I'm God.
So why does it say I'm God? And one of the explanations is that you should love your fellow and that the way that you love your fellow, I will love you in the same way. So the way we treat others, the way we judge others, that's how God will treat us and judge us and actually the Arizal says and it's in Mosidurim that before you pray you should actually say this verse right that I take upon myself to love your fellow as yourself so it's in Mosidurim you'll see this that at the beginning of the prayers that it's good to recite this as well to take upon yourself every day to really love your fellow as yourself take upon this yourself this mitzvah and finally I'm going to finish with this to tie it all together. One thing about praying is prayer is a channel between you and God.
And you are not just you because every human body is only half of a human being because we have soulmates. So soulmates is a very Jewish Torah idea. It says that right in the Torah that when God created Eve, Adam and Eve, And God said, that a person needs to leave their parents.
And a man specifically should cleave to his wife. And become one. So originally Adam started as one.
God split him in half into male and female. And said, now you need to find each other again. And reunite. And become one flesh again.
Become like one again. And the Gemara in Sotah also says this idea that But 40 days before a person is conceived, God already determines the soulmates. Take one soul, splits it in half.
This one's going to go to that person. This one's going to go over there. And they're going to find each other, hopefully, and come back together and reunite. And the Gemara says that a person who's not married is only half person. Because every person needs their other half, needs their soulmate.
And so for the prayer to be totally successful, it's good to have... to reunite with your soulmate and pray together because it's one channel between you and your spouse and we see this from Yitzhak and Rivka when they got married they were infertile for a number of years and then the Torah says that Yitzhak prayed he prayed to God and the this the commentary say the sages say it doesn't say doesn't say that he prayed like about his wife since he prayed and right away God answered him so the sages say that it's how can we got prayed together Rashi says this as well that they actually prayed together as one so it's really important also for husband and wife to pray together and have a common mindset and have a good relationship between them that their channel is to heaven is clean and clear and goes directly to heaven so actually one of the sgulot one of the like ben one of the things that help prayer is to have a good relationship with your spouse uh so and itzhak and lifka are the perfect example of a happy marriage the first time that the word love actually appears in the context of marriage is with its hak and lifka And we have a principle that when a word in the Torah appears for the first time, that's the epitome of that word. That's how you learn about that word.
And when Ava, between a husband and wife, first appears in the Torah, it's between Yitzhak and Rivka specifically. So they represent a perfect marriage. They were monogamous, right?
Avram had Hagar and Keturah, and Yaakov had Rachel and Leah. For whatever reasons, they were not so monogamous, but Yitzhak and Rivka were perfectly monogamous. one husband, one wife their whole life, and had a really good relationship. And they're also the only couple that the Torah describes as being really passionate about each other, intimate, that he was metzachek etishto.
So they represent in the Torah, etzach and lefka, a perfect marriage. And at the same time, they represent perfect prayer. And the sages actually comment on this and say, why didn't Abraham pray when he couldn't have a child with Sarah? Why didn't Yaakov? pray when he couldn't have a child with Rachel so Yitzhak and Levka had really successful prayers because they had a really successful marriage yeah so successful marriage is also an important key to successful prayer and this is encoded in the Siddur in Nishmat Kol Chai which we say like on Shabbat in our end at the end of Pesuket Zimra we say these words and if you look in most Yidurim it's written like this in this order and highlighted the words Yitzhak and Lifka to remind you of Yitzhak and Lifka and their perfect prayers and to put it all together mathematically because we all love numeric I think we all do if you want to see the mathematical proof uh the the numerical value the Gematria of Yitzhak and Lifka is 515 if you do your math Yud is 10 and Tzadi is 90 and Chet is 8 and Kuf is 100 and Lifka is 202 and 105 you So you can do this in your head really quickly.
Yitzhak Elifkai is 515, which is the same value as the term Basar Echad, right? When the Torah, God said that every, yeah, so Bishat Aviv et Imor, right? Each person should cleave to their spouse and become Basar Echad, become one again, reunite as one. The Gematria of Basar Echad is also 515. And that's also the value of the word Tefillah.
Tefillah prayer is 515. And 480, 35. So 515. And the Gematria of Vayetchanan. If you remember Parashat Vayetchanan in the Torah, Vayetchanan el Hashem vayetai, that Moses prayed to God. He really wanted God to let him into the land of Israel.
And he prayed to God. He begged God to let him in. And the Midrash says, how many times did he pray for God to let him in? Chamesh me'od v'chamisha asar pe'amim, 515 times, because that's the Gematria of Vayetchanan. I mean, we learned that from the Gematria of Beit Hanan, but it's also the Gematria of Tefillah, that he prayed 515 times, and God told him, stop, don't pray anymore.
If you pray one more time, I'm going to have to let you in. You know, you're going to change my mind, and you can't, don't do that. So if you pray for something, and you're wondering why God doesn't answer necessarily, you have to see that I pray enough for this. Because Moshe prayed 515 times before God told him, stop praying.
Because if you pray one more time, I'm going to have to answer your prayer in the positive and let you into Israel. And it's not meant to be. So stop there. And Shira, which is song, we know most of our prayers are in the form of song. The Gimash of Shira is also 515. And most of our prayers, the bulk of it is Psuched Zingra's songs.
We sing them. And so Shira is also 515. And this chart over here, if you're wondering what it is, I heard once that There's 515 verses in Psuched Simra. We sing 515 verses.
And that's why Psuket Zimra, at least on Shabbat, ends with Nishmat Kol Chai, with this little passage with Yitzhak and Rivka in 515, because there's 515 verses of prayer and song. And so I wanted to see for myself. So I actually made a chart on Excel and I took a Siddur and I started counting all the verses from the start of the Siddur to the end. And this is just a part of that chart. It's not the whole thing because it wouldn't fit on the screen.
But I actually counted. to see if there are 515 verses. And there are 515. I mean, obviously, depending on where you start and finish. From Korbanot, from Vayidaber, Tzavad Neislam. So from Korbanot until the end of Sukkot Zimra on Shabbat, there's 515, roughly 515 verses.
I mean, depending on, of course, the Sidur that you have, there's minor variations, a sentence here, a sentence there. But more or less. it comes out to, I have 515, but on your Siddur it might be a little different. But from Korbanot, which is really the start of the prayers after the Birkot Hashachar, until the end of Psuket Zimra, you have 515-ish verses.
So it is true that there are 515 verses, depending on your Siddur, and where they put the period, where you put the verse. So that puts everything together. the idea of 515 and of soulmates and of prayer and of singing and of, and of our, all of our, and everything.
So that's, that's it for prayer. So just to summarize praying, making prayers, praying successful, don't rush through it. Quality over quantity, do it with meaning, do it intention. Now, hopefully after this four part series you have more hopefully it'll make your prayer a little bit more meaningful and judge others favorably. and pray for others, put others before yourself.
And of course, make sure to have a good, wholesome, happy home that's gonna facilitate more successful prayer as well. And that's it for prayer. Any questions or comments, happy to take them. Thank you for listening.